SportsRatings 2013 College Football Pre-season Top 125
| Wisconsin Badgers (Big Ten #4; Leaders #2) |
 #27 |
2012 Results |
AP #35 USA #30 | Strength:#18 Success:#33 Overall:#19 |
| Record: 8-6 | Bowl: Lost to Stanford 20-14 (Rose) |
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| 2013 Outlook |
Picks: AP #23 | USA #23 | Lindy's #26 | Athlon #19 | Steele #24 |
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| Record: 8-4 | Bowl: Outback (Eligibility odds: 99%) |
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With a new head coach, Wisconsin tries to make it four Rose Bowls in a row.
| Offense 7 ret. starters |
2012 Scoring Offense: #61 (raw) #35 (adjusted for opposition) |
| 2013 Projected Scoring Offense: #39 (adjusted) |
Montee Ball leaves as the all-time touchdown leader in NCAA history and 2nd only to Ron Dayne in rushing for Wisconsin.
| Passing Game |
2012 Passing Rank: #116 (raw) #111 (adjusted) | 2012 Sacks Allowed (adj.): #60 |
| 2013 Projected Passing Rank: #84 (adjusted) |
2103 Sacks Allowed (proj.): #84 |
Wisconsin struggled at quarterback last year between Joel Stave (1,104 yards, 6 TDs, 3 int), Curt Phillips (540 yards, 5 TDs, 2 int) and the original starter, NC State transfer Danny O'Brien (523, 3:1). Stave ended up being the best and will start this year; Phillips will back him up; and O'Brien transferred. The receiver situation is better this year with the top seven pass-catchers back led by Jared Abbrederis (837 yards, 5 TDs). More consistency should lead to better numbers, but Wisconsin won't become a passing team overnight.
| Rushing | 2012 Rushing Rank: #13 (raw) #10 (adjusted) | 2013 Projected Rushing Rank: #28 (adj.) |
The running game in the early part of the season was even worse than the QB play, especially because it was Wisconsin; the Badgers couldn't run the ball against Northern Iowa or Oregon State (35 rushing yards against the Beavers). They fired their offensive line coach and eventually things improved: they had 56 yards on the ground against Nebraska in the first meeting, and 539 in the rematch in the Big Ten title game. Montee Ball (1,830 yards, 22 TDs) again led the way, and his off-season concussion probably had some effect on his early game performances. James White was 2nd with 806 (12 TDs) and Melvin Gordon had 621 with a stunning 10.0 average. Ball is gone but the other two are back. The offensive line returns starters Ryan Groy, Rob Havenstein, and Kyle Costigan and should be essentially as strong. White and Gordon are both great but Ball was a workhorse and touchdown machine. New coach Anderson likes to run the ball but not as much as Wisconsin; he'll inevitably increase passing's share of the reps a bit, so we see a drop. If Gordon comes close to maintaining his ypc and gets a few hundred reps, I will take that back.
| 2012 Adjusted Stats: | Rush Defense: #18 Pass Defense per-game: #15 Per-attempt: #12 | ||
| Defense 6 ret. starters |
'12 Scoring Defense: #13 (raw) #13 (adjusted) | '12 sacks: #47 | '12 picks: #106 |
| '13 Projected Scoring Defense: #8 (adjusted) |
'13 sacks: #37 | '13 picks: #100 | |
It sounds like there are going to be a lot of changes on the defense this year from new defensive coordinator Dave Aranda. Last year they were a 4-3, now they're going 3-4 but sometimes will show 5-2-4. In any case, three defensive line starters are back, all seniors, which works well for the 3-4. Interestingly the line's sacks leader is backup Tyler Dippel (5 sacks in 20 tackles). At linebacker top tackler Mike Taylor (123 tackles, 12 tackles for loss) is gone but two starters are back including #2 tackler Chris Borland (104 tackles) while Brendan Kelly (5 sacks) moves into one of the open slots. The secondary is fairly depleted by the loss of three starters; Marcus Cromartie and Devin Smith combined for 25 pass breakups. Dezmen Southward (8 tackles for loss) returns at free safety. The front seven—however it's configured—looks to be stronger while the secondary will probably slip a bit, but overall the D should be just as strong, maybe top ten quality.
Special Teams/Situations
- Kicking Game: Punter Drew Meyer (41.5 average) is back as is kicker Kyle French (10 of 16 FG); the latter is being pushed in camp by sophomore Jack Russell (0 of 2 last year).
- Return Game: Jared Abbrederis (6.5 average on punts last year) may handle both types of kicks again this year, as will Kenzel Doe (27.9 on kickoffs, 12.4 on punts). Doe had a touchdown punt return last season, and Abbrederis had one in 2011.
- Turnovers projection: We see hardly any difference from last year.
Coaching/Recruiting 2013 Recruiting Rank: #45 2012 Recruiting Rank: #87
Wisconsin had a tiny class last year so Gary Anderson didn't have the normal transition-year decline as he pulls in a class that ranks in the top half of the Big Ten. RB Corey Clement from New Jersey is a consensus blue chip; another top recruit, QB Tanner McEvoy, was robbed in Madison when he was drunk. First Montee Ball, now this...who knew Madison was such a dangerous place?
2012 Recap
Wisconsin's season followed the trajectory of their running game.
Through the first 5 games it didn't work, and they struggled to beatNorthern Iowa, lost to Oregon State 10-7 points, needed Utah State
to miss a game-winning field goal to win 16-14, had to hold off UTEP 37-26 at home, and
couldn't hold a 17-point lead at Nebraska losing 30-27. Beating 2-10 Illinois 31-14 wasn't all that impressive, but Ball
averaged 6 yards per carry, a sign that he was getting it back. When he
did at Purdue, the entire running back stable came with him and they had
467 against the Boilermakers, 337 vs. Minnesota, 564 at Indiana, and
539 against Nebraska—483 more than they managed 2 months earlier. Stanford's defense handled the Badger running game and the Cardinal won, 20-14, leaving the Badgers 8-6.
Last year's prediction: We overrated the Badgers significantly last year, putting them in the top ten and expecting a 10-2 record. The AP and coaches had them #12, so at least we had strength in numbers.
2013 Outlook
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Wisconsin 2013 schedule & forecast |
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| 8/31 | Sat | vs. | Massachusetts | 99% | W | |||
| 9/7 | Sat | vs. | Tennessee Tech | 100% | W | |||
| 9/14 | Sat | @ | Arizona State | 22% | L | |||
| 9/21 | Sat | vs. | *Purdue | 88% | W | |||
| 9/28 | Sat | @ | *Ohio State | 20% | L | |||
| 10/12 | Sat | vs. | *Northwestern | 58% | W | |||
| 10/19 | Sat | @ | *Illinois | 93% | W | |||
| 11/2 | Sat | @ | *Iowa | 76% | W | |||
| 11/9 | Sat | vs. | BYU | 65% | W | |||
| 11/16 | Sat | vs. | *Indiana | 76% | W | |||
| 11/23 | Sat | @ | *Minnesota | 72% | W | |||
| 11/30 | Sat | vs. | *Penn State | 81% | W | |||
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Straight up: 10-2 Cume: 8-4 Bowl eligible: 99%
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Wisconsin gets two games to ease themselves into their new offensive and defensive schemes, something they could have used last year. UMass and 3-8 Tennessee Tech will put up no fight. Then they travel into Pac-12 territory again and hope for a better result from Arizona State than they got from Oregon State. They should beat Purdue at home but another tough road trip follows to Ohio State. Three Big Ten games follow, then BYU at home, and three more conference games; Wisconsin could win them all, with Northwestern and BYU at home probably the toughest obstacles.
That gives them 10 wins game-by-game, and almost 8.5 cumulative wins. The "mode" is 9-3. In other words a pretty typical Wisconsin year: always bowl-worthy, often double-digit wins, but never quite national title caliber. We have the Badgers finishing #4 in the Big Ten which would send them to the Outback Bowl against the #4 SEC team (assuming 2 BCS teams from each conference), and that could be Mississippi this year.
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